Seedream 4.0 scores 57 on our photo-anchored scale (95% interval 44–70), where a real photograph is 100. In 864 blind judgements on 48 commercial scenes it showed no measurable difference from Qwen Image 2.0: Seedream was preferred in 48.2% of judgements, ties split. GPT Image 2 was clearly ahead, preferred in 68.6%. By category, Seedream leaned ahead on social marketing and fashion, and behind on product shots, typography and street scenes.
A real photograph is pinned at 100, and every model sits by how often it won blind comparisons — the further left, the less often. Scroll sideways to see the rest of the ruler.
83 · #4
80 · #2
79 · #3
67 · #4
57 · #3
53 · #4
16 · #3
−14 · #4
Prompt used:A low-angle outdoor selfie of a young woman with dark curly hair in two afro puffs, large white round earrings and a white necklace, laughing widely with her arm stretched toward the camera. She wears a mint quilted bomber jacket over a navy and white striped top with a canvas tote strap on her shoulder, and holds a glass bottle of detox water with cucumber slices and lemon. Behind her a modern building facade with pink and mint vertical louvres, ornamental grasses and a pale concrete bench.
Seedream 4.0A second mid-tier generator rather than a step up: statistically level with Qwen Image 2.0 on believability, with a different category profile. Worth routing social and fashion briefs to; keep product and typography work on Qwen Image 2.0 or GPT Image 2.
Strengths
Weaknesses
| Provider | Price | Checked |
|---|---|---|
| ByteDance (BytePlus ModelArk) | $0.03 / img | Sep 25, 2026 |
| fal.ai | $0.03 / img | Sep 25, 2026 |
| Together AI$0.03 per megapixel, 1 MP | $0.03 / img | Sep 25, 2026 |
| Runware | $0.03 / img | Sep 25, 2026 |
Prices are for one 1024×1024 image at standard settings, checked 25 September 2026; the price at the top of the page is the average of the providers listed. Workroom pricing is on the pricing page.
Seedream 4.0 is a proprietary ByteDance model served through the BytePlus ModelArk API; its weights are not published. Terms for generated images are set by the service you generate them in.
Workroom is an AI router: we give access to third-party models, including Seedream 4.0, and we are not affiliated with ByteDance. We have no stake in any single vendor winning; the router is only useful if it sends each brief to the right model. The judgement-level data behind this card is published by Everypixel research under CC BY 4.0 and linked below, so every number here can be checked independently.
Between 6 and 11 September 2026 we compared Seedream 4.0 blind against two fixed rungs of our quality ladder, Qwen Image 2 and GPT Image 2, on the same 48 commercial scenes the ladder was built on — three independent generations per scene, 288 pairs, 864 judgements. Every pair was judged three times, without any indication of which image came from which model, on three questions: which image follows the prompt better, which is more believable as a real photograph, and which is more attractive.
Pairwise comparisons are fitted with a Bradley–Terry model; intervals come from bootstrapping over scenes. The rungs of the scale are frozen from the baseline study, so every new model lands on the same scale. The score uses believability only:
score = 100 + (strength − strength_reference) / a
model strength fitted against frozen anchor strengths from the v3 baseline; the calibration line is pinned at the photograph = 100 Category positions are fitted the same way on the 6 scenes of each category, with a real photograph pinned at 100 on every one of them.
The frozen gap between the two rungs was 0.83; this session measured 0.71 with a 95% interval of 0.45 to 1.02. The frozen value falls inside that interval.
The pairs Seedream 4.0 was judged against directly — where its place on the scale comes from.
A coin flip: 48% for Seedream 4.0, no measurable difference.
432 blind comparisons, each pair shown 3 times
GPT Image 2 was preferred over Seedream 4.0 in 69% of blind comparisons.
432 blind comparisons, each pair shown 3 times
Every image, every vote and every number behind the scores, so the conclusions can be checked independently.
Data: CC BY 4.0. Images: All rights reserved; provided for verification only.
<blockquote cite="https://workroom.everypixel.com/models/seedream-4-0"> <p>Seedream 4.0 scores 57 on our photo-anchored scale (95% interval 44–70), where a real photograph is 100.</p> <footer>— <a href="https://workroom.everypixel.com/models/seedream-4-0">Seedream 4.0 benchmark: blind pairwise test</a>, Everypixel Workroom, September 2026</footer> </blockquote>
Everypixel Workroom. (2026). Seedream 4.0 benchmark: blind pairwise test. https://workroom.everypixel.com/models/seedream-4-0
